


The spear and the shield

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Trauma, Codependency, Dreams and Nightmares, Fear of Death, Gen, Orphans, Pre-War of the Ring, Protective Siblings, Separation Anxiety, Sibling Love, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28997664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Eowyn and Eomer have been together all their lives, and nothing save for death is ever going to change that.
Relationships: Éomer Éadig & Éowyn
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	The spear and the shield

**Author's Note:**

> I just started the second book today and I am loving these two!! I love their relationship, even in the movies. Also, apparently, when the war of the ring started, Eomer was 28 and Eowyn was 24, and when they were taken in by Thoden after their parents died, they were 10 and 8?? So I adjusted their ages to fit that. Also??? These two are really hard to tag on Ao3? I literally had to type 'e' and go through every single LoTR pairing until I found them.

At the age of ten, Eomer was woken in the middle of the night by the ear-splitting sound of his sisters' screams. It was not an unfamiliar scream, but it was rare enough that it still filled Eomer with fear.

He scrambled out of bed, his knees hitting the cold, stone floor of his uncle's halls, and he shuffled to her side. They shared a room, under their uncle’s behest, when it became clear that they would not separate, and he reached her with ease. She was tangled and wrapped in her bedsheets, tangled around her arms and legs and taught around her throat, flexing as she screamed. 

Through the closed iron door he heard the shouts of stationed guards and the harried voices of maidens as they gathered their skirts and sprinted through the halls to reach their chambers. Eomer paid them no mind. Still, Eowyn screamed, her face red from exertion, her knuckles white from gripping the sheets.

Gently, Eomer placed a tender hand on her forehead and stilled her thrashing, lowering himself down on top of her to whisper in her ear. “Eowyn,” he said, and gradually, she woke. “Wake up now, Eowyn. It’s only a dream.”

Eventually, she came to consciousness, her screaming pittering off into deep, harrowed gasping. He crouched on the cold stone beside her bed, resting a hand on her heaving chest. The door was flung open, and guards stood at the threshold, followed by the maidens charged with their care. After a moment of confused silence, the maidens, now assured that there was no danger Eomer could not protect her from, ushered the guards out of the room and shut the heavy door behind them again. Their echoing footsteps left the doorway, then they were once again alone.

Eowyn was clad in sweat, the sheets wet with it, her bedclothes sticking to her skin. “Eomer,” she gasped, and it sounded so harrowed, so fearful that Eomer felt his heart clench. “Oh, _Eomer_.”

"I'm here," Eomer said gently, caressing her face. "I'm here. It's just a dream. There's nothing that can harm you there."

Holding back a sob, she slowly sat up and swung her legs off of the bed, wiggling her toes as her feet touched the cool, refreshing stones. Eomer kept his hand on her thigh. Her entire being was wound tight like a bowstring as she glanced around the room at the four stone walls, the sealed iron door and the barred windows. Outside, a bell was ringing. People were whispering just below their window, their voices too hushed to discern. A horse whinnied, and an _éored_ calmed it down. On the other side of the room, Eomer’s identical bed and meagre belongings were discarded and haphazardly thrown from when he leapt to her side.

“You were slain,” she managed through tears. “You were slain upon the wall like father was, by the orcs, and I died from heartache just as mother had. I watched you fall.”

“No,” Eomer said gently, shaking his head. “I live still. There is breath in me yet. We both made it from our city, alive and well, and are now in our chambers at Edoras, in Rohan, under the care of our uncle Theoden. Surely you remember his horrible speech at supper tonight when he was too deep in his cups to form a proper sentence?” Eowyn managed a giggle. “And surely you remember the feel of the steed beneath you this morning, holding tightly onto me as we toured the city with feet swift like the wind?”

She smiled. It was small and fractured and timid, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Yes, I remember. Uncle had wine all over his blouse. The horse’s name was Fleetfoot. We took her from the stables when the masters weren’t looking and returned her before they caught us.”

“That’s it,” Eomer smiled, looking up at her watery eyes. “See? We’re safe. We’re not back there anymore.”

Sniffling, she wiped at her nose. “It still felt so real. I thought you had died. I thought that I was alone.”

“Never,” Eomer swore with all his heart. He reached up and wiped a single falling tear from the tip of her nose. She looked at him with those scared yet hopeful eyes of hers, and he promised himself, not for the first time, that he would never allow anything to happen to her. No hair on her head would be touched while his heart still beats in his chest. “Know that I would never leave you. I would never let you be alone.”

“You might not have a choice in the matter,” Eowyn crinkled up her nose. “You might be a fearsome warrior at the mere age of ten, but you might die on the battlefield, or slain by an orc, or shot through by an arrow, or-”

“But _until_ _then_ , I will do everything I can to take care of you,” Eomer interrupted with a smile. She giggled, kicked her feet and looked up at him through her eyelashes.

His heart swelled. Looking at her, at the weight to her shoulders and the sadness in her eyes and the melancholy that an eight-year-old should never know, he was filled with a familiar love that almost suffocated him. For a moment, she looked more like the battle-weary wives back home, who had seen too many scarce winters and who had watched their husbands and children leave to fight in unspeakable wars, often not making it back. But then, she smiled that little smile he loved so much, and she looked just like she did back before when everyone was happy and alive. 

He rose from his knees and sat beside her on the bed, brushing her hair away from her face and tucking it behind her ear. Her braid had come loose in the night, her furious movement removing the simple band and freeing her wild stands. “I love you, you know,” he said. “I really do.”

Huffing, Eowyn collapsed into his side, resting her whole weight against him, and Eomer wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “I love you too, even if you are a stubborn ox most of the time. Just promise me something?”

“Anything,” Eomer muttered into her hair, and he meant it with every fibre of his soul. 

“Don’t leave me,” she said so simply, so easily that he felt a spear of sadness pierce right through him. “Not like mother. Not like father. Not yet.”

Eomer held her tighter, crushed against his side in a firm yet loving embrace, and placed a kiss to her crown. “I swear it.”

* * *

At the age of 20, Lady Eowyn stood on the steps of Edoras, staring out into the barren wastelands that lay beyond their home, the biting wind whipping her hair about her and tugging at her dress. A handmaiden pled with her to come inside, but Eowyn refused. She would watch, and she would wait, and she would pray until her brother was back at her side.

Her eyes burned from staring at the sun, her skin stung from the cold winds and her stomach rumbled with hunger, but still, she watched for signs of movement and listened for the beating hooves of the Riders of Rohan.

Grima had watched her during her vigil, had urged her in that slimy, hissing tone of his to seek shelter from the winds, to await the _éored_ _’s_ return in a more comfortable manner, like during the feast, but Eowyn had ignored him and sent him away with scathing words meant to burn, and he had scuttled away, a dark stain against the white of the Mark, and thankfully let her be.

The longer Eowyn waited, the more panic replaced the blood that flowed through her veins, and her heartbeat pounded in her ears like a war-drum with the uncertainty of her brothers return.

Eventually, as he promised, as the sun was setting and the sky was painted in glorious purples and reds, the faint thumping of hoof-steps could be heard in the distance, and it grew louder and louder as the Riders tore over the lip of the great hill on their mighty steeds and came barreling towards their home with unparalleled focus.

As wives and children peered their heads out of doors and windows to watch, Eowyn picked up her skirts and sprinted down the steps as fast as he legs could carry her, weaving between guards and onlookers towards the stables.

It took her a moment too long to find her brother amid the writhing mass of sweaty heaving bodies, and fear began to fill her at the prospect that her brother had not returned.

But then she was him- deep within the crowd, his helm still resting upon his brow, his face taut and tired and coated in ash, his eyes searching the crowd in near-desperation. Their eyes met, and Eowyn was running towards him before she could stop herself, nudging people of out the way in her haste, and leapt into waiting, open arms. He pulled his helm from his head and discarded it on the ground as she buried her nose into his neck, breathing in the scent of him, of blood and sweat and dirt, and he wrapped his arms around her. 

“You’re late,” she teased him breathlessly, blinking up at him through tears.

“I truly am sorry,” he said. Pressed against him the way she was, his arms wrapped tightly around her and his armour digging into her skin, his voice shook her to her very core. “It was unavoidable I’m afraid.”

Relutantly, Eowyn pulled away but kept one hand on him at all times. His face was drawn and tired, but he looked relieved and happy to see her beneath the weight on his shoulders. There was a bloodied bandage wrapped around his arm. “You’re hurt.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Eomer barely glanced at it, and he turned Eowyn’s face away by her chin. “I got off lucky. Nothing compared to what some of the others have suffered. We had to burry some good men today. We were attacked by a pack of wargs on our travels, and we fought them through the night. We-”

“I know. We heard the news,” Eowyn hushed him kindly. “And there will be time for you to mourn your fallen comrades, but do not blame yourself for their death. Come, now. Every wound must be tended to, even yours.”

Eomer’s breath ghosted across her face as he laughed and pressed his forehead against her own. “I’m sorry I make you worry,”

“I always worry,” she said simply, tucking a tangled strand of hair behind his ear. “It’s my job. You go off to fight, I stay here and worry.”

“You didn’t have to wait for me, you know,” Eomer pointed out.

“I know,” she replied. “But it’s for my own conscience, not yours. It makes me feel better knowing that you are safe the moment you ride through the gates instead of waiting for some maiden or guard to tell me whether you have lived or died.”

He smiled, and pulled away from her gently, keeping one hand on her shoulder and the other cupping her face. She leant into the touch as he brushed his thumb across her face. “You’ll be out there someday,” he said. She smiled. “I kept my promise.”

“You always do,” she laughed, before pulling away entirely and dragging him by the hand away from the fray of shoulders and towards where some of the guards had summoned the clerics. “Now stop trying to prevent the inevitable, and get yourself checked out. You better not have any more wounds you’re hiding, or I _swear_ , Eomer…”

His laugh was deep and jolly and loud, and more genuine than she had heard it in a very long time. “Well, it isn’t as if I’ve got much of a choice,” he looked pointedly at their joined hands as she dragged him along. “But I suppose, just this once, you can get your way.”

“I think I’m owed it,” she snorted. Very undignified, but after the worry that coursed through her system finally abated, she couldn’t find it within herself to care. “Considering my brother finds the most fun at the pointy end of a spear.”

“Oh please,” he laughed. “Don’t tell me you don’t find comfort in the weight of a sword in your grasp?”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. They both knew the answer, but Eowyn was too happy to have his hand in hers to point it out.


End file.
